The material is extremely soft and it is definitely on the firmer side, but I prefer firmer. It is accurate with other reviews that the backing is pretty low (but my fault for not measuring it). The material even seem to hold up to my cats digging and scratching in the tufted holes so far as well, after a week of having the couch. Overall, I really love this couch and assembly was a piece of cake with power tools :) Delivery process and delivery crew were awesome to work with also.